#4- Pundit: The average salary for teachers in our society

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (B)

The pundit in this stimulus states that because the average salary for teachers is lower than the
average salary for athletes, it must be the case that our society values sports more than it values
education.

The question stem asks for the reason that the pundit’s argument is questionable: Is the average
salary the best means to determine how much a society values education? Perhaps there are
indicators other than this one simple comparison that would more accurately reflect our societal
priorities.

Answer choice (A): While sports may have some sort of educational value, the pundit doesn’t make
any such presumption in the stimulus. Regardless, such a presumption would not play into the
author’s conclusion that society values sports more than education.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. If the total spent on education is much
greater than the total spent on sports, this would provide evidence against the pundit’s assertion that
our society values sports more than education. The failure to consider this fact renders the pundit’s
conclusion questionable, since information on total money spent might provide a better means to
judge the value that our society places on education.

Answer choice (C): The argument in the stimulus provides a simple comparison of salary—how
much each profession makes, on average, in a year. Information about the vacation time afforded
to the respective professions would not be relevant to the comparison offered by the pundit, so the
failure to consider such would not be a vulnerability in the argument, and this answer choice is
incorrect.

Answer choice (D): Comparing teachers’ salaries only to those of professional athletes is not a fl aw
in the pundit’s reasoning; when the relevant comparison is between the society’s valuation of sports
and education, further comparisons between teachers’ salaries and the salaries of other professionals
would be irrelevant, so this answer choice should be eliminated.

Answer choice (E): The pundit’s argument deals exclusively with our society’s valuation of sports
vs. education, so further comparisons to the salaries of other teachers from other nations would be
irrelevant to the argument. The pundit is making a judgment about his or her society alone. What
other societies do in terms of teachers’ salaries or athletes’ salaries does not play into the author’s
conclusion regarding this society.

[actionjackson]

Hello Powerscore,
I have a few questions about this Flaw in the Reasoning question. I broke down the stimulus as follows:
Premise: Average salary for teachers in our society is lower than average salary for athletes.
Conclusion: Obviously, our society values sports more than it values education.
I was between answer choices B and D, and I ultimately chose incorrect answer choice D as my response. Is D incorrect because the author of the stimulus doesn't really have to compare salaries between any other professions? The flaw that B seems to be indicating to me in a numbers/percentages flaw, is that accurate? What kind of flaw would you categorize this as?
Thank you as always for the assistance.

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, actionjackson,

Good questions! You've got the argument analyzed correctly. Now you have to assess what the flaws are. The most glaring problem is that:

• The author assumes that average salary for a profession directly correlates with how much a society values this profession.

In addition, we could note that:

• The author assumes that the average salary of some people who work in a field correlates with the overall value assigned to that field as a whole.

In effect, we have a couple issues here:

1. We're assuming that teachers' lower pay versus that of athletes means teachers are less valued.
2. We're assuming that teachers' lower pay also implies that education as a whole is less valued.

If you wish to describe how the argument is flawed, you could look for a match for either of these issues.

Notice how Answer Choices (B), (C), and (E) begin. Each starts with "fails to consider..." What this phrase does is show you that the information that follows will weaken the conclusion. The possibility that the author has failed to consider runs contrary to the author's assumptions.

In this case, Answer Choice (B) illustrates a problem with our second faulty assumption, that teachers' lower pay implies that education as a whole is less valued. It's a good match.

Answer Choice (D) is not a weaken answer but rather an attempt to describe the overall flaw. This answer suggests that to have a solid argument, it would have been necessary for the author to compare teachers' salaries to those of other professionals as well. We have no reason to believe that the author should have done this.

I hope this helps!